The present invention relates generally to telecommunications systems and, more particularly, to a system that provides Direct Distance Dialing (DDD) access to a communications services platform.
A number of different communications services are available to a customer, including local telephone service, long distance telephone service, automatic routing service, cellular telephone services, voice mail messaging service, facsimile messaging service, paging service, and the like. Unfortunately, each such service requires a unique telephone number. As a result, the customer must manage the multiple telephone numbers and not confuse the mapping of telephone numbers to services. This confusion is enhanced by each of the services being separately billed such that a customer receives separate billing statements for each of the services. Unfortunately, accessing communications services like those described above are not generally available by single number DDD access.
The present invention provides direct distance dialing (DDD) access to a platform that provides multiple communications services. The platform may provide, for example, voice mail services, paging services, automatic routing services, facsimile messaging services and other services. The billing for calls that are handled by the platform is shared between the caller and the subscriber. The caller will be charged as if the caller attempted to place a call to the subscriber at the subscriber""s home location (i.e., at the location dialed by the caller). The other charges associated with the call will be assessed to the subscriber of services that are provided by the platform.
In accordance with a first aspect of the present invention, a method is practiced in a telecommunications network that has a switch for routing calls and a platform that provides multiple communications services on behalf of a subscriber. A call is received at the switch from a caller that was initiated as a DDD call by dialing a DDD number. The switch performs a translation of the DDD number to a value for accessing the platform. The call is routed from the switch to the platform using the translated value.
In accordance with another aspect of the present invention, the telecommunications network includes a platform for providing multiple communications services on behalf of the subscriber. The telecommunications network also includes a selected switch that receives a call from a caller who dials a DDD telephone number to place a call to the subscriber. The switch includes a translator for translating the DDD telephone number to a translated value for use in routing the call. The telecommunications network also includes routing switching for using the translated value to route the call to the platform.
In accordance with a further aspect of the present invention, a method is practiced in a telecommunications network that has a platform for providing multiple communications services on behalf of a subscriber. The method is concerned with billing a call that is initiated from a caller to the subscriber but that is serviced by the platform. The caller is charged for calling the subscriber, whereas the servicing performed by the platform is charged to the subscriber.